Trump's name removed from Kennedy Center after blowing past deadline

Trump's name removed from Kennedy Center after blowing past deadline A federal judge ruled May 29 that adding Trump's name to the center was illegal and ordered it be stripped from official materials and eliminated from signage.

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump's name removed from Kennedy Center after blowing past deadline Donald Trump's name is off the Kennedy Center after workers took down the president's signage past a deadline to comply with a judge's order.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's name is off the Kennedy Center.

Workers in the early morning of June 13 took down the president's signage after blowing past a June 12 deadline to comply with a judge's order.

Construction crews first showed up at the iconic arts institution on the afternoon of June 12, mounted scaffolding and and geared up to take down the president's name ‒ letter by letter ‒ from the sign on the building's facade.

Yet for several hours, the scaffolding sat there with no action. The center's Trump-appointed leadership waited until after an end-of-day deadline for workers to remove Trump's name. Work to take down the letters finally got underway at 3:10 a.m. ET, lasting about 30 minutes. A tarp was placed on parts of the scaffolding, seemingly to block views of Trump's name disappearing from the venue.

After losing multiple, last-ditch requests to be permitted to keep the name up, Trump and the Kennedy Center's board asked the judge late on June 12 for an additional 12 hours, saying thunderstorms caused delays.

The judge approved that request early June 13, after the original deadline had passed. The DOJ, which is representing Trump and the Board, confirmed in the late morning that the name has come down.

Ahead of the drawn-out removal, the scene outside the Kennedy Center turned into a spectacle.

Hundreds of onlookers cheered and sang God Bless America as workers in hard hats with bungee lanyards clipped to their fluorescent yellow vests prepared to remove Trump's name. Many in the crowd were dressed as if for a performance at the stately Washington, DC, venue. Onlookers were festive and chatty amid thunderstorms that threatened to delay the work. Passersby honked their car horns in approval.

The hundreds on hand during the balmy DC evening chanted "take it down."

Carolina Clarence, an area resident, came to watch with her dog, Ruffino. The retired kindergarten teacher called it "ridiculous" that Trump’s name was put up at all.

"We’re going to see this coming down," said Clarence, adding that Trump's name on the building hurt the storied institution as artists cancelled shows and donations fell. "They’re going to destroy the Kennedy Center."

Workers arrived on site shortly after the last-minute bids to keep the name up were rejected.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, in a May 29 ruling, said adding Trump's name to the center was illegal and ordered it be stripped from official materials and eliminated from signage within 14 days, by June 12.

In his June 12 denial of the Justice Department's request for a pause on his earlier ruling, Cooper said the defendants failed to prove their appeal would be successful and failed to show that the Kennedy Center would be "irreparably harmed" by following through with his order.

With the clock ticking toward an end-of-day deadline, the Trump administration later filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals, requesting that it intervene to pause Cooper's order before 7 p.m. ET, but the panel of judges denied the request, paving the way for the removal of Trump's name from the building.

Intermittent thunder and lightning didn't stop the crowd from gathering around the building to watch the spectacle, some in fancy clothes amid a festive attitude.

Earlier this week, the Kennedy Center's attorneys advised staff to adhere to the judge's order. Trump's name was quickly removed from the center's website and scrubbed from employees' email signatures. The center, however, waited until the judge reviewed a last-minute request to suspend the order before taking down the most visible display of Trump's attempted takeover of the center ‒ a large all-caps sign on the exterior of the building's marble facade that said, "THE DONALD J. TRUMP AND," above the old signage saying, "THE JOHN F. KENNEDY MEMORIAL CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS."

The removal of the president's name from the center is a visibly striking blow to Trump's efforts to remake the center to his liking.

The Kennedy Center voted in December 2025 to rename the venue in honor of Trump, arguing he helped secure federal funding critical for the center's transformation. His name was added to the building's exterior sign less than 24 hours later.

Visitors react to Trump appealing name removal at Kennedy Center Visitors reacted to a judge's ruling to take President Donald Trump's name off the Kennedy Center, which has prompted the administration to appeal.

Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled that the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, made up of primarily Trump loyalists, violated the 1964 federal law that created the center to honor the late President John F. Kennedy when it voted to add Trump's name. The judge said the statute makes clear "the Kennedy Center must be named for, and is meant to honor, President Kennedy alone."

The judge's order came in a case brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio board member at the Kennedy Center, who sued to stop Trump's rebranding and attempted two-year closure for renovations.

Trump plans to close center blocked

In his ruling, Cooper also overturned Trump's plans to close the Kennedy Center for two years beginning in July to accommodate massive renovations to the building.

The closure was approved in a March vote by the Kennedy Center's board of trustees. In his 94-page opinion, Cooper questioned the credibility of the conclusion from Matt Floca, the center's executive director, that renovations couldn't be carried out without shutting down the center for the public.

The judge also said the center's board "lacked any meaningful say" in the matter when it voted for the closure on March 16. Trump already announced the closure plans on Truth Social on Feb. 1.

Reuters contributed to this report. Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.